Opinion | Features

Enough with the cooking shows already says media trading director Sam Tedesco. The market saturation is not doing anything positive for the ratings.
Like most members of the Australian TV viewing audience, I love a good cooking show. Right now, though, I need a break from high-pressure personality-driven food formats.

In this opinion piece Kevin Fitzsimons argues SBS documentary Go Back to Where You Came From demonstrates how people will accept ideas more readily when they are shown them.
‘People don’t do conceptual,’ was one of the best pieces of advice I received early on in my marketing career.
It took a while for me to grasp the value of the advice and even longer to apply it.

Australia's biggest supermarket is struggling. Steve Jones spoke to industry experts about how Woolworths' marketing strategy has faltered, and whether the brand can revive its fortunes.
When Woolworths chief executive Grant O’Brien fell on his sword last month after another disappointing set of quarterly figures, it surprised no one.
Without a chief marketer following the abrupt dismissal of Tony Phillips – and with several other high profile executives exiting stage left in recent months – it was just another in a long line of senior level departures at the embattled supermarket.

Media commentators not condemning the booing of AFL star Adam Goodes are effectively condoning bullying argues Adam Ferrier.
I have always admired Adam Goodes. Dual Brownlow medallist, premiership player, Australian of the Year, continued good work for indigenous people. He certainly deserves respect. Don’t know if I like him or not though, never met the guy.
However, Alan Jones commented on the issue recently and said the reason Goodes is getting booed is just that, ‘Because they just don’t like the fellow’.
What a damaging thing to say, and surely it’s not as simple as that?

After recently switching to ING Direct Ian Sizer says the current ad campaign for the online bank is seriously making him consider switching back.
When you get an ad appearing every single ad break it can be irritating. Some ads though go way beyond irritating and become so infuriating it can totally bugger up your evening.
That’s what happened to me last weekend when my viewing was interrupted on a regular basis by the latest offering from ING Direct.

While storytelling has become one of adland's biggest buzzwords Rob Lowe argues marketers are failing to make the necessary emotional connections.
I remember first hearing people talk about ‘storytelling’ a few years ago. I never quite understood it then and I still don’t fully understand the term now.
In fact, like many others, I think it’s overused marketing jazz.

Ahead of the launch of Seven's new reality format Restaurant Revolution tonightAngely Grecia crunches the numbers to see what sort of a buzz the show is creating on Twitter.
The Restaurant Revolution - the new foodie reality TV-show that sees ordinary Aussies designing and running their own pop-up restaurant to win a grand prize of $200,000 - is alive and well on social media.

Despite all the hype the news dinosaurs still dominate the plains of online news in Australia argues The New Daily editorial director Bruce Guthrie in an address to the Rural Press Club.
One way or another, as a journalist and editor, I’ve had a front-row seat at the migration of news from print to online over the past 20 years. And whenever I reflect on that sometimes painful, often clumsy process I am reminded of the joke about the man who walks into a bar with a frog sitting on his head.

In this opinion piece Mumbrella's Alex Hayes argues Lexus' new Heartbeat Car stunt will not raise the pulses of ordinary punters.
I have to admit the new 'world first' Lexus 'Heatbeat Car' leaves me cold.
It comes across as technology for technology's sake - they could have achieved the same results with CGI.

In this guest post, Shabaz Hussain wonders what a posh British drink’s surprise social media win at Wimbledon says about sports sponsorship for brands.
According to a recent Brand Intelligence Report from Amobee the brand most associated with The Championships at Wimbledon in 2015 across social and digital is Pimm’s – a traditional cocktail drink that spectators enjoy at the event.
What makes this more interesting is that fact that they were not an official sponsor of The Championships.

With more than $200m of business in play in Australia due to global pitches. But David Angell asks whether swapping partners will achieve much for these multinationals.
Do you watch soap operas? Of course you don’t, you’re all busy executives with crippling workloads.
But I bet most of you can remember them from younger days.

While some of the figures in the latest RECMA rankings are questionable Nic Christensen argues they still provide an interesting insight on the state of the media industry.
There's something about the RECMA numbers that just does not make sense. But when you ask a bunch of agencies to tell you how much they spend every year you're likely to get some very interesting results.
But despite the inconsistencies they are still the best map of media agencyland, are provide insights around the challenges of staff churn, the rise of programmatic and the broader challenge of falling client spend which are actually quite telling.

The way that blogger and influencer outreach is currently being executed is fast becoming unsustainable, and the industry should be worried argues Louisa Claire
When bloggers began sharing the brands they loved and used in their everyday lives, readers found their endorsement authentic and relatable; it came from someone “just like them”. Research found such backing from “real people” was more successful in swaying purchasing decisions than celebrity endorsements, and marketers opened their eyes to a massive opportunity to leverage bloggers’ voices.
The concept of blogger outreach was born.

MercerBell expands strategy team

Ad agency MercerBell has appointed strategy director Jess Littlewood to the board.

The announcement:

SYDNEY, 10 DECEMBER 2012: MercerBell has given strategy director Jess Littlewood a seat on the management board as she heads up a bigger and more broadly experienced strategy team.

Littlewood, who joined the agency in 2008, now oversees a department that includes the skills of brand strategy, CRM, digital strategy, social strategy, community management and data strategy through sister agency, ngage.

“Our skills have grown and expanded as our clients have asked for more and diverse strategic work to be completed. Jess has the perfect blend of leadership and strategy skills to ensure we continue to offer our clients the very best advice,” said Nick Mercer, CEO of the MercerBell Group.

MercerBell has recently completed specific strategic projects for clients including RSVP, MasterCard and BT Financial. For the recent Nestlé Maggi ‘Fists of Fusian’ campaign, strategy drove the creation of the social media campaign.

Littlewood said: “Our strategy team has been built to deliver the committed customer relationships we strive to achieve for our clients – from defining our clients’ marketing problems through to delivering insight-driven solutions, we then measure and learn from these strategies to optimise activity going forward.”

The team works closely with ngage, MercerBell’s data planning and analytics consultancy to integrate data insights and learnings into their strategies.

In addition to Littlewood, the team also includes strategy planner Amy Kousis who specialises in CRM, social media manager Carly Drew and digital strategist Maura Tuohy who was recently named ADMA Young Marketer of the Year.

Mercer said: “Jess has made a great contribution to strengthening our strategic offering for our clients, as well as the agency itself. We are thrilled that she will continue to help shape our business in a more formal way as part of the management board.”

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